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Thermaltake Sonic Tower CPU Heatsink

     Not too long ago a company named Zalman released what was known as a silent heatsink. Of course much like any newly released heatsink, it was a dismal failure. Of course times and designs change, and Zalman, as well as, other fanless/passive designs, represent excellent performance, yet with quiet operation. As a matter of fact, I would have to say that silent/passive heatsinks are actually preferred over the loud behemoths we used to rely upon. Thermaltake just grabbed a piece of this phenomenon, and with their silent heatsinks and water cooling kits, they are actually quite competitive. The TT Sonic Tower is one of these, and with the amount of surface area, should be a good buy so long as it performs. Lets find out how it does...

Specifications

-Designed for LGA775, K8, P4 and K7
-High performance fanless CPU cooler, 0dB cooling solution, reduce total system noise
-Heatpipe technology, transfer the heat quickly
-More surface area gives good heat dissipation
-Aluminum fin soldered to copper base, perfect contact to ensure the best performance
-Special designed fan holder can secure the optional 12 cm fan

Features

      The TT Sonic tower comes packaged well enough to avoid clumsy shippers and graveyard inventories. One of the first impressions is the overall size of it. It is massive and weighs a lot too. Much of that weight is more on the base of the sink itself rather than the top like we've seen from heatsinks like this from last year. Its nice to TT pay attention to improving an otherwise good design.

     Yes that is a quarter to the left just to give you an idea of my focus on the size of this thing. We planned on using it on one of friends cheap gaming rigs so we're gonna see if it can crack the core of a socket A AMD.

     The base of the TT Silent Tower isn't the best I've seen, and considering the price you would think they would do a better job of it. I'm not going to even check the flatness of the base since it is obviously un-lapped anyways. Luckily us overclockers benefit from the advanced thermal compounds like Arctic Silver, which should be used rather than the white paste TT includes in the package.

      This is one of the TT Silent Tower's strong points; The ability to clamp onto anything. Yes, it fits everything; Socket 370, 462, 478, 754, 775, and 939/940. I did notice the lack of Xeon support, but I'll bet Thermaltake has a kit for that somewhere. Oddly enough the Socket A/462 was by far the trickiest of any HSF I have ever installed. A Shim, (It's been a long time since I've mentioned that word!!) is definitely a must have if you plan on using this on a socket 370/462 since the sheer weight is going to create a hot spot on your cpu. I personally think Thermaltake needs to improve on that particular attachment, but then again nobody really overclocks them anymore to my knowledge. Installation is VERY TRICKY, so be careful! Pay close attention to the vague instructions and you'll get a good enough idea to pull it off.

Installed and ready to go on a NF-7S2 budget gaming rig!

Test Setup

      AMD Athlon XP 2400 Mobile
      Abit NF-7S2G
      Crucial Ballistix PC-3200 2x512mb
      Connect 3D Radeon 9600XT
      Fortron Soure 500W PSU
      Xion Gaming Case (side window open)

     For our testing configuration we played a few games at default clock speeds, then ran the cpu up to 166Mhz FSB at a 1:1 ratio to keep the Crucial Ballistix happy. ClubOC members will cry (myself included) if we didn't overclock this little budget box! We finalized our temps by logging MBM 5.3.60 CPU readouts using Sandra Burn-IN, and Super PI. Arctic Silver 5 was used on the processor die, and was left to sure for 48hrs before testing. We also used the included fan plates to mount a 1200 RPM Lian-Li 120mm fan to check out how well the TT would operate with just a little active cooling.

     Compared to the retail AMD heatsink the difference in temps is crazy. We're quite sure that if we had a better heatsink to compare it to it would be a better competition, but then again the newer retail AMD HSF is copper, heavy, and much improved then it was back around 2002. The performance of the Sonic Tower is simply incredible! I'd say if I had never discovered alternative cooling I would seriously consider this heatsink for my next build, although I will have to say to keep my mind at ease you may want to avoid it if you're a socket A owner since the weight of this thing over time may hurt your computer. It just makes me somewhat nervous having that much weight push on one side of the CPU, yet ease of on the other. Almost like a an arm bar right on top of your CPU. Users with Intel 478/775 or AMD A64 CPU's need not to worry since the heat-spreader will protect your CPU, insuring good operation with this heatsink.